John Whiting

Vedat, you've sketched an outline of post-modernist cuisine which, with very little alteration, could be a summary of the ethos and the modus operandi of the TV commercial. It is, perhaps, an illustration of the degree to which TV ads have permeated and altered the way we think about and react to daily experience -- and ultimately to life itself.

John Allemang is a regular columnist for the Toronto Globe & Mail. He's the sort of Canadian (I don't know if he's a native) who led the South Park team to produce their Christmas feature film in which the devil is really a pair of obscene Canadian homosexual stand-up comics. Not that he's any of those things, but he's the sort of irreverent journalist who makes patriotic God-fearing Americans see red.

To be absolutely honest -- and I kid you not! -- I virtually never touch a can (tin) of anything except tomatoes, for a sauce. It's not because I have an exquisite palate -- if you could see what I pile, shake and dribble onto the lettuce for my usual lunchtime salad, you would cross yourself and reach for your crucifix. No, it's just that cans don't do it for me. But don't let me put you off your feed. You could slather raw oysters with chocolate sauce and, so long as you chose to describe it in your incomparable manner, I would lap up every word, if not the dish itself. As to moving an accent, let those who are the true masters of the virtual tell you how to edit; i.e. alter the past. (Now there's a subject for a Marcel Aymé short story!)

One of my favorite volumes from the Time-Life Good Cook series edited by Richard Olney is _Terrines, Pâtés & Galantines_. It gives detailed instructions for carrying out some elaborate recipes whose complexity goes far beyond what my impatience would tolerate. But there are wonderful simple recipes as well. In fact, some of the more time-consuming set pieces suggest combinations of ingredients which can be effectively combined in simpler ways which satisfy the palate, if not the eye. A friend who worked on the whole monumental projects tells me that Olney made things difficult on this volume -- he didn't really know all that much about this aspect of culinary art, but kept putting his oar in anyway.

Amazing. I had to do a Google search to be certain you weren't offering us a huge helping of Pulled Leg. Whatever turns you on. Edit: I typed were instead of weren't.

In Britain and America, food is not generally regarded as a subject worthy of serious discussion. (I never tire of quoting your comment that “food writing’s guilty secret is its intellectual poverty.”) Thus, the few food writers who are very widely known in intellectual circles tend to be those who made their reputations in some other area. Have you ever been invited to write for, say, the New York Review of Books, Mother Jones, The Nation, NY Times Magazine or any similar high profile mags? Do you think it would be worth making the effort through self-promotion? Or do you prefer the quiet life?

I still think that the most interesting example of highly prized decayed food -- because it is the most widespread example, both geographically and chronologically -- is dessicated fish, both the garum of the ancient Romans and the fish sauce of various South Pacific cuisines. It is truly potent and produces an instant revulsion in most people who are unfamiliar with it. It's even beyond (I think) the ripest cheeses that have gone well past their sell-by date. I find the flavor intriguing in small quantities, but my wife can't bear to have it in the room.

My wife, in researching children's dislikes of food, found that "slimy" seemed to head the list; e.g., overcooked okra (ladies' fingers).

I'll send you Ducasse's recipe privately. Alas, because of copyright restrictions I can't post it here and it's now in the NY Times archives, where you pay through the nose. But those with an overflowing nose can easily find it by searching for "Pasta from the Italian Riviera", by Alain Ducasse, March 13, 2002.

The learned tolerance for fiery sauces is remarkable. We had a luncheon guest from Dubai, a modest little slip of a girl about twenty. In the course of conversation she confessed that she had never had a sauce in London that was hot enough. Jokingly, I offered her the hottest sauce I’d ever encountered, a mixture so formidable that I season an entire dish by dipping a fork into it, shaking off the excess, and then stirring the pot with the fork. She took a bit on the end of a spoon, smacked her lips and proceeded to put a generous spoonful on her shepherd’s pie. She gobbled it up without the slightest sign of discomfort. And she wasn’t showing off – she was much too well-mannered.

His recipe as published in the NY Times, March 13, 2002, was merely descriptive and did not specify quantities. However, I tend to be conservative with the olive oil, reducing the amount in many recipes that I do regularly, and I've not had the slightest bit of trouble. But the bronze-extruded pasta is essential; otherwise you'd have a soggy mess no matter how much olive oil you used.

“France is still a country where you can sit down at their midmorning snack with the workers who have come to fix your plumbing and talk seriously about Grandmother’s daube; it is also a place where you can write about it with what can only be called rigorous sensual intellectuality.” “Simple French Food”, _Pot on the Fire_, p.353. John, that says it all. Did you ever consider moving to France, if only for part of the year?

John, were you able to get in touch with the Muffin Man who sells in the Raspail Market in Paris?

That's why he specifies the very hard artisanal bronze-extruded pasta. I've done it, and the pasta doesn't stick together at all. And it comes out like a wonderful risotto fantasy, particularly with twisty convoluted pasta, such as stozzapreti.

You'll recall that I was once invited to contribute to a certain prestigious food magazine, and that when I suggested an in-depth piece on you or Alice Waters, you were both dismissed as "predictable visionaries". Sigh.

An interesting footnote. Jeffrey told us at an Oldways conference that he writes, incongruously, for Vogue because the publisher happens to be an enthusiastic fan. There was an occasion on which Jeffrey wrote a particularly stinging condemnation of a food product which lost Vogue an enormous amount of money in pulled advertising, but he only heard about it by accident several months later. Now, that's what I call editorial permissiveness.

"Pain is gain" in its various forms has a wide currency. I don't subscribe to it -- the line beteen purgative suffering and the further reaches of S&M sex is difficult to draw with any certainty.

One answer -- by no means original -- is simply that we have become so divorced from the original sources of our food that we are happiest with those cuts of meat that are the most anonymous; i.e. those which both look and taste more or less like each other and do not readily reveal what part of the animal's body they came from. Organ meats are very distinctive in both these respects and are an inescapable reminder that a creature has been killed in order to feed us.Roast birds are one obvious exception -- only the head and the feet are really bothersome.

You've put the modern dichotomy within a more distant, inclusive perspective which, I think, makes the detail of this discussion sharper rather than blurring it. As Levi-Strauss demonstrated, even primitive societies have a complexity beyond that of "invented" modern social structures. Or as Oscar Wilde put into the mouth of a character commanded to deliver the truth, pure and simple: "The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

In result, it sounds not unlike Alain Ducasse's method for cooking dry bronze-extruded pasta, which he unequivocally credits to Liguria farmers. Briefly, he cooks the hard pasta as if he were making a risotto, starting it in olive oil after the sauce ingredients have begun to soften and before starting to add the liquid.

Could it possibly be more esoteric than your essay on Cuisine Méchanique, which is (in my opinion) one of the most important you ever wrote? Might you consider sharing it with us here in some manner (such as putting it on your website with a URL you share only with us)? Or, best of all, include it in Simple Cooking, no matter how esoteric. Perhaps as a separate issue, available to electronic subscribers, so that you don't have the expense of an extra mailing. (Your response to the primitive Chez Gramond menu, with its myriad overpastings, tells me that this essay must not be wasted!)

In more ways than one. Even in the classical world, digital editing made it possible for elderly musicians who had passed their sell-by date to be reconstructed, even with younger and more dextrous musicians playing the more difficult passages.But that is in serious danger of going off-topic. Let me return by suggesting that more than one great chef may have had his reputation preserved by help in the kitchen from those who were actually more able than their illustrious front-man.

John, welcome. I continue to be fascinated by the fact that, almost uniquely among modern food writers of any reputation, you never talk about restaurants where you have eaten. In fact, I remember one aside in which you modestly explained that you couldn't afford to eat at the more expensive ones. Your world, as I've written elsewhere, seems to revolve around your kitchen and your library. Was this restriction deliberate or circumstantial? It would appear that it continues to give you all the scope you need -- chamber music, as it were, rather than full-blown orchestral.

Re the tomato as a poisonous fruit: Several centuries ago, vessels for keeping and serving food were often of pewter. A strongly acidic food such as the tomato would gradually absorb the lead from pewter and could ultimately lead to lead poisoning. As to the motivation for eating "disgusting" food, "epater les bourgeois" is a common cause of all sorts of behavior. And once the gauntlet is thrown down (to thoroughly mix metaphors), it is difficult not to pick it up. In the end, a thoroughly unpleasant taste, such as burning tobacco, can become acceptable and then irresistible.

Bux sums it up accurately, I think. Just back from another week in Paris, we were impressed yet again with how much evidence there is for either an optimistic or a pessimistic view of the future of French cuisine. There is truly awful food in abundance, and not only tourists eat it. But the street markets still thrive and are crowded with patrons of all ages. A representative experience: I misjudged the closing time of a bistro where we had planned to go for lunch, and so we found ourselves without anywhere to eat except a down-at-heel bar/brasserie near the metro station. The decor and the patrons were, shall we say, not quite comme il faut. I ordered a salad with chicken gizzards and Mary a cheese omelette. The salad was not exactly imaginative but the vegetable ingredients were as fresh as one could wish and the gizzard slices hot and tasty. Mary's omelette was -- well, flawless. If I got such quality for such money in any ordinary London eatery I would probably have a heart attack.